Apart from the restaurants that had high ratings on Tripadvisor, we also allowed ourselves to be a little more adventurous and tried random hawker food that we saw on the streets that appealed to our inner Taiwanese (Taiwan has the best hawker food culture). Luckily, everything that we ate in Hanoi was fabulous and didn’t have too much of a disagreement with our stomachs!

Sofitel Metropole – Spices Garden Vietnamese Buffet

We decided to start off our Hanoi trip with a quality Vietnamese buffet at the Sofitel Metropole. I thought, starting off at a “high class” Vietnamese restaurant in Vietnam would ease our stomach into the Vietnamese food and water better; plus, we could use this 5-star experience as a benchmark for the rest of our culinary trip.

From my personal experience, any buffet in Asia is much more luxurious and value-for-money than the buffet in Australia. Sofitel Metropole didn’t let me down.

Snail noodle soup.

Pho!

The fertilised duck egg…It’s a delicacy (if you could call it that) in Vietnam, but I just couldn’t bring myself to try one. Too scary of a thought to bite into the tiny ducky in the egg…it gives me the goosebumps every time I think about it. Even though it feels cruel, come to think of it, I’m not exactly a vegetarian myself so who am I to judge. I just can’t imagine why it would be enjoyable (probably because I’ve never tried it? I guess I would never find out). Anyway, if you are really keen to try one, it probably is more hygienic to try it at a 5-star hotel like the Sofitel, just fyi you could find them here.

With all this food, the price was USD$29.50 per person only. Coming from Australia, we thought it was definitely worth the money given the variety and authenticity of the Vietnamese food on offer. But of course, one has to take into account that the average price for a bowl of pho was less than USD$2 on the streets, so it was not cheap by Vietnamese standard.

By the way, we made our reservation through our travel agent, Darian Culbert. He was the booking agent that we used to book our Halong Bay cruise, and he also took care of our Vietnamese visa for us. I saved the 15% service charges that Sofitel normally charged by booking it through him! So, a tip is to always check with your travel agent on any special discounts that they may be able to offer before you book directly with these established restaurants.

Fresh tropical fruits.

Glutinous Vietnamese dessert.

A mixture of Western and Vietnamese dessert. The dessert section is always my favourite section in a buffet!

Pho Bo Gia Truyen (Hanoi Pho – street food)

This was one of the Pho places I looked up online. It was very close to our hotel in the old quarter.

The place was actually a little bit more run-down and local than I had imagine. Nevertheless, Mike and I were very determined to have a bowl of authentic Vietnamese Pho, so we didn’t mind the setting – the truth is, we eat hawker food all the time when we go back to our home country, Taiwan, and nothing bad ever happened to us. We would like to think of ourselves as having iron-made Asian stomachs that can withstand fabulous food prepared in less than sanitized environments (plus, we had our HepA, Typhoid & BYO chopsticks!).

There were actually two female Westerners in the shop too. If they could have it, why couldn’t we, right?

Pho Tai nam = beef flank noodle soup.

Pho Tai =rare beef noodle soup.

Pho Chin = sliced well done beef noodle soup.

If only we knew what they were when we were ordering…We just picked one and hoped that it was what we wanted, at the same time praying that it wasn’t any weird meat other than beef.

It was de-li-cious!

We had never had this type of Pho before, the soup of this Northern Vietnamese Pho was distinctly different than the Pho that we had in Sydney, being the Southern Vietnamese Pho. The soup base of the Southern type was richer and sweeter; whereas the Hanoi type had a clearer soup base and a different kind of flavourful-ness.

Me, having a bowl of pho on a Hanoi street, with my BYO chopsticks, (almost) like a local!

{Pho Bo Gia Truyen}
Address: 49 Bat Dan Street, Hanoi

La Badiane (French cuisine)

Another highlight of our Hanoi culinary trip was the French cuisine.

Why? Because Vietnam used to be a French colony and the French culture had a huge influence on the Vietnamese food – this is why the buns of the Vietnamese rolls (Banh) look so much like a baguette, because they are! And pate? Yep, it’s not a coincidence.

There’s nowhere where you could enjoy authentic French cuisine at a cheaper price than in Vietnam. At La Badiane, a highly regarded French restaurant on Tripadvisor, a three-course French meal cost USD$15 only!

My entree: Soupe de saison (vegetable soup). This was the best soup of its kind that I had ever had.

To be honest, I didn’t realise carpaccio means raw beef (pardon my ignorance), and I was a bit taken aback when this dish was served. Who would have known, this turned out to be the best dish of my day! Absolutely superb.

Bia Hoi Ha Noi (Hanoi beer joint)

There were lots of beer joints like this for the locals to have a pint of authentic Hanoi beer, order some food, sit around and…stare at strangers.

It’s funny how many locals were actually looking/peeping at my camera in this photo!

Stir fried spinach.

Mixed vege.

My friend, A, told me that she saw a lot of food joints in Vietnam that washed and re-used disposable bamboo chopsticks in Vietnam, and they were even damp when she picked them up. I was horrified! That’s why I brought our own re-usable stainless steel chopsticks – better safe than disgusted.

Green Tangerine (French cuisine)

Ta-da, another French cuisine that we had. Here, at the Green Tangerine, we had a USD$13 ($13!) 3-course meal (3-course!) in the lovely courtyard outside of a 1928 heritage French villa.

My Han Quoc (hawker food)

Another of our random hawker food find. We saw two stalls selling identical noodles, figured this must be what the locals liked, so we picked one and sat down at the little plastic stools.

The owner lady was really sweet. She must have noticed this was our first time, she kept on gesturing us to add the mayonnaise. She even got a young Vietnamese guy nearby (who could speak a little English) to try to explain to us what this was.

Turned out, My Han Quoc = Korean noodles.

It was a very shabby setup, but it was seriously good.

Quan An Ngo (Vietnamese restaurant)

Quan An Ngo was another highly regarded Vietnamese restaurant in Hanoi that I found on Tripadvisor. Expect to queue up for a table, it was that popular.

Basically, it was commercialisation of the Vietnamese street food culture, and put in quality and hygienic controls to make it more acceptable to the tourists in a proper restaurant setting. Very clever.

Banh My Nhu Y (hawker food)

Mike and I love Vietnamese pork rolls, so this was the second thing (other than Pho) that we definitely wanted to have while in Vietnam. Luckily, on our last day in Hanoi, we saw one!

We didn’t care that we just had a big French 3-course, we were determined to have it.

It didn’t let us down.The bread was so crusty and the filling was as good as a pork roll could get, pork slices, pate, salad, onions and spring onions. And it was just a random one on the street!

Kem Trang Tien (Ice cream)

Kem Trang Tien was another of my research findings. The fact that it was established in 1958 and that there was a mob of teenagers gathering here on a cold winter day, wrapped around in their scarves and eating ice cream, was proof that this place was a local favourite.

With all these motorbikes parked under the shed, this place looked like a popular dating spot amongst the locals.